Rusty Muck

On 4/20/2022 at 3:41 PM, newscopter7 said:

They ought to bring back the italicized Group W font and make it fit the box 

 

KD

KA

 

That’s the recognized brand in Pittsburgh—not third placed CBS News. 

Hate to break it to everyone but "KDKA-TV 2" is already being deemphaized in favor of "CBS News Pittsburgh" and "CBS Pittsburgh".

KDKA means radio, and Audacy has a rather sweet licensing deal with Paramount Global to continue using the call letters as a brand. Let them continue to use that name and lessen the confusion, like when people were complaining at KDKA-TV because of Wendy Bell flaming out at KDKA radio.

2 hours ago, DirtyHarry said:

92.7 is Class B1, I believe. Just like WWLG.

Yeap, you’re right. They bought 92.7 from the Christian Voice of Central Ohio as a direct B1 replacement for 102.5.

It’s WZVL that’s the class A which was built from the ground up.

On 4/22/2022 at 4:24 PM, TheSpeedKing said:

Looks like Henry Littick was desperate to sell. Wow that's cheap (for a few broadcast stations).

If WWLG was included I bet the whole kit-and-caboodle would have gone for $13M… $15M at the most. It’s being retained by the Litticks and I’d be surprised if Urban One doesn’t buy it outright very soon.

Marquee only got channel 18, a graveyard class C AM with a FM xltr, and two small-ish class A FMs, one of which was built to outright replace 102.5. I’d say this was a generous offer.

22 hours ago, Big Rollo Smokes said:

For purposes of historical accuracy, I think it's important to state in this thread the reasons why WCMH-TV and WHIZ-TV co-exist as overlapping NBC affiliates, and why Zanesville maintains its own DMA.

 

WCMH went on the air in 1949 as WLWC, the second link in Crosley/Avco's regional network of stations. After the FCC reorganized the VHF allotments in 1952, WLWC was moved from channel 3 to 4. With the potential of huge overlap between WLWC, WLWT and WLWD (WDTN), the FCC told Crosley that the three stations had to transmit from short towers.

 

WHIZ-TV signed-on from Zanesville in 1953, and filled a gap in NBC coverage, partially due to WLWC's signal shortfalls on the eastern edge of the Columbus market.

 

Fast-forward to 1976, when Avco breaks up its tv holdings and sells WLWC to Outlet. No more grandfathered protection with Cincinnati and Dayton. Soon after Outlet took over, WCMH-TV more than doubled the height on its original tower, which was located at the studio building on Olentangy River Road. Then in the early 1980s, the station moves a few miles south to the taller candelabra tower built behind the WBNS-TV plant on Twin Rivers Drive. Channel 4 now covers the entire Columbus market and is viewable clearly in Zanesville.

 

WHIZ-TV, meanwhile, barely makes it to the border of Franklin and Licking counties -- which was probably intentional. If they went to the max with both ERP and tower height after their own move from channel 50 to channel 18 in 1955, WHIZ would have gotten into Columbus pretty easily. Instead, their smaller signal protected WLWC and kept their focus on Zanesville and Muskingum County.

 

So the way I see it, the primary purpose of WHIZ's continued relationship with NBC is now redundant. It would make logistical sense to fold Zanesville into the Columbus market at this point, but I can also understand the arguments against doing so.

WHIZ’s relationship with NBC dates back to 1939, when the AM station—then owned by a Storer/Fort Industry affiliate—signed up with the network as its 180th station on the same day the WHIZ calls were adopted. So it goes back much, much further than the TV channel.

This is not apropos of anything but to more accurately explain the length of WHIZ’s tenure with the peacock. WHIZ radio has never changed since the 1940s and may have been the last full affiliate of the original NBC Radio Network when Westwood One finally shut that down in 2004.

And again… if there was financial incentive for NBC to force the collapse of Zanesville into the Columbus DMA, it would have happened at the same time as WHAG, WMGM and KENV getting disaffiliated. Heck, WLIO is safe because—along with getting all the other networks as subchannels—there’s no incentive for NBC to help a crummy Toledo affiliate that no one watches.

There isn’t a darn thing to suggest anything changes at WHIZ. Hell, Marquee isn’t into radio and they bought the companion three radio stations because the radio industry is no longer a buyer’s market and never will be again. I’d expect all three to remain “as-is”.

Furthermore, there’s no real incentive to move the station or have NBC disaffiliate it. If there was it’d have been done long ago.

I do see Marquee affiliating with CBS and/or ABC on subchannels. Definitely with ION. It’ll help shore up exclusivity in the market.

(I don’t care for Nielsen being the one to define DMAs, and the system is far too political BUT it’s still the rules to be played by… and there’s not much to be gained by absorbing a tiny DMA 50 miles away from a larger market. Then again, that’s pretty much what NBC did in Elko NV…)

On 4/11/2022 at 7:28 AM, ScottSchell said:

KSWO finally made the full switch

If that one-size-fits-all Gray ticker wasn’t in the way, I’d be fine with the look; in fact, the WMC package looks like something that Raycom would have done back in the day.

On 4/13/2022 at 5:22 AM, PTVNews said:

 

He's worked at other "major" stations before so the question must be asked why is he doing this? Didn't make it there so trying to do it on his own? I know his health may have been a factor at one point. But making a TV newscast on your own isn't gonna happen. I get the feeling he just likes being on TV or thinks it's impressive to others that he puts out videos....but anyone can do that nowadays with the internet. It was impressive what he did when he was young  but why does it seem like he is doing the same type of thing?

 

As others have said, many Youtubers with basic equipment can put out compelling high quality content. Why doesn't he try that instead? He needs to put himself in the shoes of potential viewers and what would be interesting to them. Low quality stolen clips from competitor newscasts is not it.

 

The ratings may never be great, but you could do some interesting stuff. I saw a "drone 53" in one of his videos. If he actually has one, why not take it out daily and broadcast a 5-10 minute flight over an area. That's 10 minutes right there of unique local content which beats out what he's currently doing. That's just one of many ideas I'm randomly thinking of as I write this.

 

If "news" is what he wants to stick to though, why not go to an event of the day and do a 15 minute story on it, even if it's just a long straight interview. At least it'd be on-site and not in "the basement".

 

Use a smartphone to record HD, an external mic, and stabilizer, and the quality right there should be quite good. Wouldn't be too hard to edit in some b-roll, etc to elevate it. 

 

I can root for him like others want to, but there are also expectations that someone with his "experience" level (if we can call it that?), should be able to put out better content than this at this point in his career. Which brings us back to the question of....why is he doing this?

Amen, amen, amen! There should be a niche that Austin could fill and give KMSG something of value for the community. Even if it was a long-form newsmagazine I’d respect it.

LOLOL at all the apologists and shills on here (and you know you are) for something that is in reality a non-factor in the Fresno market and never will be a factor. It’s almost like you want Austin to credit you as a “Consulting Producer” at the end of his newscast.

I don’t think anyone at KFSN or KMPH is even aware this newscast even exists, let alone thinking it poses anything close to a “threat”.

The cold truth is that news is a public service, but broadcasting is a moneymaking profession. That’s why both have been at odds with each other since Edward R. Murrow interviewed celebrities on See It Now and chimpanzee J. Fred Muggs was a sidekick on Today.

Look, maybe the program could improve. But there is no excuse in the world why that debut newscast should have made it to air in the first place. It set back whatever goals Austin wanted to meet, and needlessly so. Fresno is too big a market to have such a fiasco happen. Hell, Glendive and Alpena MI are too big a market.

It might be in everyone’s best interests for the program to be put on hiatus indefinitely and retooled outright.

If it got canceled or ended by Austin’s volition, well, I again fault the station for not doing a darn thing to help the product at launch. They failed him.

This really makes Ed Agre's work at KXGN all the more impressive. He was a literal one-man band with no computers and barely any internet access and yet he put out a damn good product, good enough to get that Real Sports shout-out.

It's also easy to mock WSVI over their No Budget News but in those videos I linked above, it's also evident that Jerome Agean and Wes Small made an effort. I can absolutely respect them for that.

This debut newscast should never have gone over the air. It should have been one of many audition tapes so technical issues could be ironed out prior to the debut. In this case I absolutely fault the station over Austin.

With all due respect to the phrase, “don’t judge a book by its cover,” here’s two more salient phrases that more appropriately apply here, and they run hand-in-hand:

1. You will never get a second chance to make a great first impression.

2. Perception is reality.

If you live in Fresno, and you stumbled upon that debut newscast and saw it looked no-budget with stories lifted from other stations, a Podcaster doing sports, and a setup that sure as hell lent credence to Scott Jones’s slam (which, considering Scott’s irrationally absurd hatred of Dave Lougee, sure doesn’t mean much), you’re likely not going to tune back to that newscast ever again.

If the perception is that it’s an cheap newscast with no effort or care put into it whatsoever, then good luck changing that. Other options exist in the Fresno market, including a freaking O&O. Watch them instead.

The fact this debut newscast already went viral is a testament to both sayings. Few will watch that second newscast in comparison to the debut. It’s how things work.

Royalty-free production music CDs and digital downloads exist. Many of them are actually very good. There is no reason why this had to happen.

Compare to WSVI in their Jerome Agean/Wes Small era and their newscasts become infinitely more watchable:

It’s not that Austin Reed made an attempt. The technical effort is simply nonexistent, it plays like a no-budget parody of a WatchMojo countdown video that somehow got played on OTA TV.

12 hours ago, TheSpeedKing said:

With that crappy encoder and VHF? No way!

WOIO/WUAB has two substantial translators to compensate for their lousy V signal, and WTCL does the same. Plus WTCL is the only Spanish-language media outlet within the city proper (unless you count WQHS, which is run out of a broom closet).

2 minutes ago, TVIntheDesert said:

 

 

"Gary" is station owner Gary Cocola, who is the "king of Central Valley LPTVs." He leases most of those channels out to third parties.

Sure doesn't sound like someone who would be thinking about getting licenses for newscast themes.

17 minutes ago, Weeters said:

Austin posted in the comments of the Studio 31 video that the music is totally licensed and we can contact "Mark Agent" about it, or somebody named "Gary".

 

 

I'm just curious how they managed to license all these themes.

Wouldn't be surprised it's "Source: Dude, Trust Me, Bro"

19 hours ago, susquvalleywgal said:

and we all thought NewsNet was bad … lol

 

— Matt

KMSG did the impossible. They made WSVI look like WSVN.

I can understand a budget of nothing and a staff of just Austin and a producer, but Ed Agre was a news department of one and KXGN put out a far more competent product on-air.

On 3/22/2022 at 10:24 PM, mrschimpf said:

And you know a music package (at least not like the faux-WGN PAMS style) is on its last legs if you're thinking 'are these singers even still alive?'

"The Spirit of Akron! On W - N - I - R" is without a doubt the closest thing to an anthem here in Northeast Ohio. Change my mind.

And oh god, is that WGN ripoff of "Nothing But Class" painful to listen to.

On 3/23/2022 at 10:53 PM, tyrannical bastard said:

Weigel may be looking to use W27EA-D for either MeTV+, the soon-to-be-launched Story, or even snag some or all of WBNX's Weigel offerings.

 

Being that WBNX is WBNX, and how they lost the CW under mysterious circumstances, could Gray and Weigel know something about them that we haven't found out about....yet?

 

WOIO/WUAB is way overstuffed with channels, so they could likely afford to lose something like MeTV, and bump MyNetworkTV somewhere else.

Easiest move to make is using 19.2 as a full-power SD simulcast of WTCL 6.1.

4 minutes ago, sanewsguy said:

I know you do. You’ve made that quite clear.

And you’ve made it known you’re an absolutely pompous jerk and insufferable, I could say what I really want to but why bother feeding the troll not named Bill Tullis any further?

6 minutes ago, sanewsguy said:

Not that. The fact you have been on here all day doubling down on your stance. I think we all get where you stand.

And with all due respect, I know your stance, too. I vehemently disagree with all of it.

6 minutes ago, sanewsguy said:

you are WAY too invested in this at this point

Correcting a obvious historical inaccuracy and stating the plain truth against all this Pollyanna garbage is “WAY too invested”. Uh huh.

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18 minutes ago, KentBrockman said:

Do you think Lincoln Financial Media, General Electric, and other diversified companies of the past knew how to run terrestrial TV stations? No. They put people in charge who knew what they were doing.

LMAO GE freaking ESTABLISHED RCA. They launched KOA-TV and WRGB back in the 1940s. They were heritage broadcasters and knew the industry.

18 minutes ago, KentBrockman said:

For the record, everyone here was skeptical when Standard General came on the scene until they heard Deb McDermott from Media General was going to be running it. Also, don't forget about the former Heartland Media (before Byron Allen gobbled it up) run by that former Gray CEO.

 

An OFFSHOOT company of INSP may be buying the stations, but who they put in power and the experience they have with local TV is what matters.

Uh huh. Deb McDermott and Soo Kim took MediaGeneral on a massive buying spree, tried to merge it into Meredith of all things, then offloaded it all to Nexstar. She’s churn-and-burn garbage and the worst of the lot.

Let’s be clear here. INSP is buying the stations via a holding company. This is again some Grade A Pollyanna stuff assuming they’ll be Just Another Broadcaster or That We Should Not Be Skeptical when, as @Weeters stated, Occam’s Razor needs to be invoked.

1 minute ago, TheSpeedKing said:

Neither is local news the way it is; Cox has been one of the better chains when it came to evolving for the 21st century, but I can see Imagicomm throw all those efforts down the drain

Cox Media ceased to exist when Apollo took over the group. This iteration of Cox is an abomination and will cease to exist in 1–3 years as Apollo sells off bits and pieces for scrap.